ABOUT MY PICTURES
In my paintings, the human figure plays the main role. I try to depict the human search for a way through the labyrinth of life with all the dilemmas and choices/opt-outs that this implies. The ideas stem from my own experiences, literature, poetry, biblical stories, the course of the world and especially from ancient myths, where they reflect life today.
My pictorial world has been described as a modern mythological narrative. At the same time personal and private, but with its symbolism also archetypal and all-encompassing. I try to depict universal life situations. The pictures give an impression of idyll, which at the same time is strangely disturbing.
Everyone will be able to see what the pictures represent. The motifs offer many possibilities for interpretation. I depict recognizable figures and objects, but in many cases the viewer will probably wonder what is going on in the motif. Being faced with a work of art that arouses one's curiosity and wonder is something important to me.
The questions are often more fruitful and meaningful than the answers.
About my background
I have always drawn and painted. In my earliest years under the expert guidance of my father, who was a trained drawing teacher. In 1990 I began exhibiting. For a number of years I taught watercolour and oil painting at evening schools.
In 2002, after 14 years, I chose to leave my job as assistant to Odin Teatret's director Eugenio Barba in order to devote all my time to painting. Before moving to West Jutland, I worked for 11 years at the Department of Classical Studies at Odense University. At the same time, I studied Italian and attended lectures in art history - a natural continuation of a long stay in Rome.
A Gateway to Dorthe Kærgaard’s Visual World
– a modern myth –
In her images, Dorthe Kærgaard works with ancient, fundamental themes that have been woven into cultures and religions for centuries: life, death, faith, doubt, choices, the journey through life, and the inner journey. The cycle of life.
Dorthe Kærgaard’s modern myths are personal and private, yet through their symbolism, they are also archetypal and universal. Through her art, she seeks to portray universal life situations.
We gaze at paintings of her picturesque Arcadia and marvel: it is like wandering through a golden dreamworld where reality, mystery, magic, and riddles blend freely. Each of these grand visual narratives contains embedded secondary motifs hinting at small sequences of events—and so on. It takes time to decipher such a painting. In essence, one is never truly finished. The images are like burrs that cling fast—hard to brush off.
The lush, silent figures in the paintings are depicted naked. It is not the body as an erotic entity, but the human being—transcending time—embedded in a symbolic and allegorical sphere. At first glance, the images convey an idyll. Yet, it is simultaneously a strangely unsettling idyll.
We observe these human figures and see what they are doing—but we must guess at the underlying reasons. And we cannot ask Sigmund Freud or Jung to interpret the images; they remain hidden outside the frame.
Does Dorthe Kærgaard have an explanation? She probably has, yes, but that is hardly the whole Truth with a capital T—after all, who has a complete grasp of their own inner life? That is why she hesitates to answer questions about the content of her paintings. "See for yourself," she says.
The origins of her motifs may lie in a conflict or an unresolved knot from the past, combined with impressions from literature and poetry, experiences of nature and travel, and news reports on world events. For the most part, she relies on her subconscious and intuition, which often prove to possess their own logic and subtlety.
She draws her raw material from extended stays in Rome and from her work with scholars at the University of Odense who research antiquity—focusing on both classical literature and archaeological material.
Dorthe Kærgaard, born and raised in Langå, moved to West Jutland in 1979 and soon became associated with Odin Teatret, where she worked intermittently until 2002.
In 1987, she moved with her family to a windswept farmhouse on Thyholm. She began exhibiting in the 1980s and has since shown her work across the country at juried exhibitions and art associations, among other venues. She has also taught watercolor and oil painting over various periods.
12 March 2009
J. J. Kjærgaard
Editor
